The Dictionary of Human Geography (2 page)

acid rain
The deposition of sulphuric and nitric acids on to land or water by rainwater. Acid rain is one form of acid precipitation, which also includes acid snow, acid hail, dry deposition and acid fog condensation. On a pH scale of 14, a substance with a pH value of less than 7 is considered acidic, while a pH value greater than 7 is considered alkaline. Rainwater is naturally slightly acidic, with a pH value of about 5.6. Acid rain generally has an average pH range of 3 5. Acidity is greatest near the base of clouds, and is diluted by a factor of 0.5 to 1 pH during rainfall (Pickering and Owen, 1994). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The English chemist R. A. Smith discovered a link between industrial poLLution and acid rain in Manchester in 1852, although it was known in the twelfth century that the burning of coal caused air pollution (Turco, 1997). Smith first used the term ?acid rain? in 1872, but his ideas have only been treated seriously since the late 1950s. The studies of Swedish soil scientist Svente Oden focused attention on this international issue. In 1972 the Swedish Government presented its case at the United (NEW PARAGRAPH) Nations Conference on the Human Environ ment in Stockholm. The term ?acid rain? has been used extensively in recent decades. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Acid rain is caused primarily by the cumu lative release of nitrogen and sulphur from the burning of fossil fuels. This includes coal for power, heating and industry, petrol in automobiles, and uncontrolled fires in coal fields and coal mines, particularly in northern China (Stracher and Taylor, 2004). While acid rain may occur through natural processes such as volcanic activity, it is the cumulative impact of human activities that has caused a marked increase in acid rain over the past century. Since about 1990 various Western countries have been generally successful in reducing their generation of acid precipitation, mostly through the closure of old factories, improved pollution control measures and the phasing out of domestic coal burning, but sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions have increased rapidly in countries such as China (Cutter and Renwick, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Acid deposition is most severe in western Europe, the Midwest of North America, in China and in countries near its eastern borders. These areas have higher generation rates. Acid rain may cross national boundaries and fall several hundred kilometres from the source, particularly when tall smokestacks displace pollution from its source area. The areas most affected by acid rain tend to be downwind of dense concentrations of power stations, smelters and cities, are often in upland areas with high levels of precipitation, and are often forest areas dissected by rivers and lakes. Acid rain kills forests when acidic particles directly damage leaves, and/or when the soil becomes acidified and the metals bound in the soil are freed. The nutrients necessary for plant growth are then leached by the water. Acid rain lowers the pH value of lakes and other water bodies, which kills fish and other aquatic forms of life. Acid rain may also corrode buildings and other structures. Pm (NEW PARAGRAPH)
action research
A synthesis between study of social change and active involvement in pro cesses of change, where critical research, reflex ive activism and open ended pedagogy are actively combined in an evolving collaborative methodology. (NEW PARAGRAPH) By its very nature, action research interro gates the conventional idea of the academic researcher as an isolated expert who is author ized to produce knowledge about the margin alized ?Other?. It seeks to eliminate the dichotomy between researcher and researched by involving research subjects as intellectual collaborators in the entire process of know ledge production: from agenda formation, an alysis and decisions about forms that knowledge should take, to grappling with the intended and unintended outcomes emanat ing from the knowledges produced. In this sense, the relevance of research for social ac tion is not primarily about helping the margin alized to identify their problems by fostering social awareness or militancy. Rather, rele vance comes from deploying analytical mediation, theory making and critical self reflexivity in ways that allow people who are excluded from dominant systems of know ledge production and dissemination to partici pate in intellectual self empowerment by developing critical frameworks that challenge the monopolies of the traditionally recognized experts (Sangtin Writers [and Nagar], 2006; see also participant observation). (NEW PARAGRAPH) To avoid slipping into a romance of undoing the dominant norms of knowledge produc tion, however, one must recognize that ?par ticipation,? ?transformation,? ?knowledge? and ?EMpowErMEnt? are also coMMoDitiES with exchange values in the academic (and exper tise) market. Rather than assuming social transformation to be the ultimate goal for a coMMunity, it is necessary to examine critic ally what motivates and legitimizes the pro duction of social knowledge for social change or empowerment and to ask whether partici pation is a means or an end. Poetivin (2002, p. 34) points out that participation as a means runs the risk of becoming a manipulative de vice in the hands of urban researchers and social activists who can operate communica tion techniques and modern information systems with a missionary zeal. As an end, however, participation can become an effective democratic process, enabling intellectual em powerment and collective social agency. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Until the 1980s, action research was regarded as a largely unproblematic community based and practice oriented realm that was less theoretical than other forms of research. But such neat separation between action and theory has been successfully muddied by geographers whose work blends post structuraLiSM with a commitment to praxis (see appLiED gEography). Such writing strug gles with dilemmas of authority, privilege, voice and rEprESENTation in at least three ways. First, it recognizes the provisional na ture of all knowledge, and the inevitably prob lematic nature of translation, mediation and representation. Second, it underscores the (NEW PARAGRAPH) importance of being attentive to the existence of multiple situated knowledges (frequently rooted in mutually irreconcilable epistemo logical positions) in any given context. Thus, negotiating discrepant audiences and making compromises to coalesce around specific issues are necessary requirements for academics who seek to engage with, and speak to, specific political struggles (Larner, 1995). Third, it suggests how specifying the limits of dominant discourses can generate dialogues across dif ference in ways that disrupt hegemonic modes of representation (Pratt, 2004). rn (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Enslin (1994); Friere (1993); Gibson Graham (NEW PARAGRAPH) (1994). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
activism
The practice of political action by individuals or collectives in the form of social movements, non government organizations and so on. Within gEography, this is related to discussions about the political rELEvancE of the discipline to ?real world concerns? and to prac tices of resistance. With the advent of raDicaL and Marxist gEography in the 1960s came a concern to facilitate the direct involvement of geographers in the solving of social problems (e.g. Harvey, 1972). Early radical geographers called for the establishment of a people?s geog raphy, in which research was focused on politic ally charged questions and solutions and geographers actively involved themselves with the peoples and communities that they studied (e.g. William Bunge?s 1969 ?Geographical Expeditions? in Detroit). The development of fEMiNiST gEography has emphasized politically committed research, including promoting dialogue and collaboration between activist academics and the people they study, as well as recognizing and negotiating the differential power relations within the research process. Another central concern has been the question of whom research is produced ?for? and whose needs it meets (Nast, 1994a; Farrow, Moss and Shaw, 1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Since the 1990s, geographers have lamented anew the separation between critical sectors of the discipline and activism both inside and out side the academy (e.g. Blomley, 1994a; Cas tree, 1999a; Wills, 2002: see critical hUMan gEography). Calls have been made for critical geographers to become politically engaged out side the academy, collaborating with social movements, community groups and protests, among others, to interpret and effect social change (Chouinard, 1994b; Kobayashi, 1994; Routledge, 1996b; Fuller, 1999). Because activism is gendered, classed, racialized and infused with cultural meanings depending on the context of struggle, collaboration requires theorizing and negotiating the differences in power between collaborators and the connec tions that they forge. Hence several authors have proposed that the differences between academic and activist collaborators are engaged in relational and ethical ways, aware of contin gency and context (Katz, 1992; Slater, 1997; Kitchin, 1999; Routledge, 2002). This also de mands acknowledgement of what Laura Pulido (2003) calls the ?interior life of politics?: the entanglement of the emotions, psychological development, souls, passions and minds of ac tivist academic collaborators. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Activism is discursively produced within a range of sites, including the media, grassroots organizations and academia, and this has fre quently led to a restrictive view of activism that emphasizes dramatic, physical and ?macho' forms of action. Ian Maxey (1999) has argued for a more inclusive definition of activism, as the process of reflecting and acting upon the social world that is produced through everyday acts and thoughts in which all people engage. Through challenging oppres sive power relations, activism generates a continual process of reflection, confrontation and empowerment. Such an interpretation opens up the field of activism to everybody and serves to entangle the worlds of academia and activism (Routledge, 1996b; see also third space). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Recent calls for activist research have ar gued that academics have a social responsibil ity, given their training, access to information and freedom of expression, to make a differ ence ?on the ground? (Cumbers and Routle dge, 2004; Fuller and Kitchen, 2004a), although such responsibility is not necessarily restricted to the immediate or very local (Mas sey, 2004). Fuller and Kitchen see the role of the academic as primarily that of an enabler or facilitator, acting in collaboration with diverse communities. Radical and critical praxis is thus committed to exposing the socio spatial processes that (re)produce inequalities be tween people and places; challenging and changing those inequalities; and bridging the divide between theorization and praxis. They bemoan the fact that there is still some schol arly distance between geographers' activism and their teaching, as well as between their research and publishing activities, and that critical praxis consists of little else beyond pedagogy and academic writing. They posit that the structural constraints of the desire to (NEW PARAGRAPH) maintain the power of the academy in know ledge production and the desire to shape the education system for the purposes of the neo liberal status quo work to delimit and limit the work of radical/critical geographers. Under such conditions, an activist geography entails making certain political choices or committing to certain kinds of action (Pain, 2003), where commitment is to a moral and political phiLosophy of social justice, and research is directed both towards conforming to that commitment and towards helping to realize the values that lie at its root (see also action research). pr (NEW PARAGRAPH)
actor-network theory (ANT)
An analyt ical approach that takes the world to be com posed of associations of heterogeneous elements that its task it is to trace. What be came known as ANT emerged out of work being done within Science and Technology Studies (STS) during the 1980s by a group of scholars including, most notably, Bruno Latour, Michael Callon and John Law. Drawing on a diversity of conceptual influ ences ranging from the relational thought of philosopher of science Michel Serres and ma terialized post structuralism of philosophers Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze to the practice centred ethnomethodoLogy of soci ologist Harold Garfinkel and the narrative semiotics of Algirdas Greimas, these authors together produced the basis of a thoroughly empirical philosophy (Mol, 2002) that has now established itself as a serious alternative to more established sociaL theories. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Latour (2005) suggests that what ANT offers as a ?sociology of association' is an un certainty as to ?what counts' in a given situ ation, which stands in marked contrast to the approach of traditional ?sociologies of the so cial', where the salient factors are more or less determined in advance. The objective of ANT is thus to give things some room to express themselves such that the investigator can ?fol low the actors' (to quote an oft quoted ANT rule of method), letting them define for them selves what is or is not important. In practice, of course, such aspirations are profoundly dif ficult to operationalize, meaning that ANT studies rarely start from a completely blank slate and instead tend to repeatedly draw at tention to a number of features of the world that are usually downplayed or ignored in clas sic social science accounts. This has led Law (NEW PARAGRAPH) to suggest that ANT is perhaps better thought of as a ?sensibility? than a theory perse, an orientation to the world that brings certain characteristics into view. Most notably, these include (1) the constitutive role of non humans in the fabric of social life. Whether it is as ?quasi objects? around which groups form, ?matters of concern? that animate sociotechnical con troversies or ?immutable mobiles? through which knowledge travels in the durable guise of techniques and technologies, ANT takes things to be lively, interesting and important. This move can be seen as restoring agency to non humans as long as it is appreciated that (NEW PARAGRAPH) agency is distributed, which is to say that it is a relational effect that is the outcome of the assembLage of all sorts of social and material bits and pieces. It is these actor networks that get things done, not subjects or objects in isolation. Actors are thus networks and vice versa, hence the significance of the always hy phenated ?actor network theory?. Making and maintaining actor networks takes work and effort that is often overlooked by social scien tists. Callon (1986) terms this mundane but necessary activity the ?process of translation?, within which he elaborates four distinctive movements. This concern with the work of the world also helps to explain the ongoing attraction of sociotechnical controversies to ANT practitioners as sites not only of political significance, but also where science and soci ety can be observed in real time. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Advocates of ANT often express modesty and caution regarding how far the findings of their specific case studies might be extended. However, the approach itself offers a radical challenge to the organizing binaries of mod ernity, including nature and culture, technol ogy and society, non human and human and so on. Viewed from an ANT perspective, these are, at best, the outcomes of a whole range of activities (as opposed to the appropriate start ing points for action or analysis). At worst, they are political shortcuts that serve to bypass the due democratic consideration that our col lective ?matter of concerns? deserve. (NEW PARAGRAPH) With its combination of a transferable toolkit of methods and far reaching conceptual implications, it is perhaps not surprising that ANT has begun to travel widely, far beyond the laboratories where it started into fields as various as art, law and economics. In geog raphy, the particular appeal of ANT has been that it speaks to two of the discipline?s most long standing concerns. On the one hand, the approach has proved helpful to those seek ing to enrich and enliven understanding of the relationships between humans and non humans whether coded ?technological? (e.g. Bingham, 1996) or ?natural? (e.g. Whatmore, 2002a; Hinchliffe, 2007). On the other hand, ANT?s tendency to at once ?localise the global? and ?redistribute the local? (Latour, 2005) has been both employed and extended by geog raphers seeking to understand how action at a distance is achieved in a variety of contexts (e.g. Thrift, 2005b; Murdoch, 2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Despite internal debates about everything from the appropriateness of the term (Latour, 2005) to whether we are now ?after ANT? (Law and Hassard, 1999), there can be little doubt that the sensibility, and probably the term, is here to stay if still very much a work in progress. One indication of this is the fact that there now exist a number of standard criticisms of ANT. These include the charges that it ignores the structuring effects of such classic sociological categories as race, cLass and gender and that it underplays the influ ence of power in society. Whether such dis senting voices represent valid concerns or are an indication of the challenge that ANT poses to traditional social science thinking is a mat ter of judgement. More significant, perhaps, for the future of ANT is that a number of its most influential figures have begun to address such criticisms in more or less direct ways, armed with a newly identified set of antece dents (including Gabriel Tarde, John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead). Prompted in part by contemporary work around the edges of ANT, such as the cosmopolitical thinking of the Belgian philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers (2000) and the ?politics of what? pro moted by Dutch philosopher Annemarie Mol, recent work in the field is concerned not only with how the world is made, unmade and remade, but also with the better and worse ways in which the social is and might be reassembled. Whether this marks the start of a ?normative turn? for ANT it is too early to tell, but will be worth following. nb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Law and Hetherington (2000); Latour (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)